eard him creeping down the stairs and his
hurrying, unequal footsteps on the empty street. Cosgrave and Connie
Edwards nodded to one another and took hands and were gone. Francey,
too, slipped to her feet. She gathered up her hat and coat, her
silence effortless. She did not so much as glance at Robert, but at
the head of the steep, ladder-like stairs he overtook her.

"Francey--listen----"

With one foot on the lower step, her back against the wall, she waited
for him. It was too dark for them to see each other clearly. They
were shadows to one another. They spoke in whispers, as though they
were afraid of waking something more than the sleeper in the room
behind them. He could not have told how he knew that her face was wet.

"I wanted to say--I don't know why I behaved like that. I'm not
usually--nervy--uncontrolled. I don't think I've ever lost my temper
before. I've had so little to do with people. Perhaps that's it.
I've gone my own way alone----"

"And now that our ways have crossed," she began with a sad irony.

"No--not crossed--come together--run out together into the
high-road----" He clenched his hands till they were bloodless in the
effort to speak. "You see, a few weeks ago I wouldn't have lost my
temper--and I wouldn't have said queer, silly things like this----
I'm a sort of kaleidoscope that someone's shaken up. I don't know
myself; things have been hard--but awfully simple. I've only thought
of--wanted--the one thing. It doesn't seem to me that I've had to
fight until now. You don't understand--what it has been----"

"I do--I do!" she interrupted hurriedly. "I've seen Christine--and the
way you live--and that dreadful cupboard. Oh, I'm not sorry for
you--only afraid. You're nothing but a boy----"

"You needn't be afraid. I'll pull through. It's only another year
now. But I can't be like the other people you know--who can be jolly
and easy-going--because they're not going anywhere at all. Can't you
be patient, Francey?"

"Was I impatient?" He felt her humour flicker up like a flame in the
darkness. "I suppose I was. It was the jam-puff. You hurt their
feelings. And it was such a little thing."

"I hate jam-puffs," he said, but humbly, because it was not the truth,
and he could never explain.

"Come with us, Robert."

"I can't."

"But you want to come?"

"That's just it. I don't know why. It would be waste of
time--money--everything--all wrong. What have